


burned before I'm free

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Series: Finding Home Without a Map [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Lack of Communication, Miscommunication, Pining, Rebelcaptainmay4, Unresolved Emotional Tension, or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:34:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: For an intelligence agent, it takes Cassian a shamefully long time to figure out that Jyn’s avoiding him.





	burned before I'm free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Copper_Nails (Her_Madjesty)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/gifts).



> Dear copper_nails, I hope you enjoy this! I tried to pack in as much of the favourite things your signup talked about as I could.

For an intelligence agent, it takes Cassian a shamefully long time to figure out that Jyn’s avoiding him.

In his defense, she’s never been predictable, even before they were doing anything more than sharing a bed. Missions, training, briefings—they both have multiple responsibilities competing for their time. She never stays the whole night; he’s grown used to waking with his arm stretched across an empty space, or a crumpled pillow that smells like Jyn.

And just when you come to expect something of her, a certain response or behaviour, Jyn evades you and overturns your assumptions. One week, she'll appear in his room almost every night; the next month, their only encounter might be a brief collision in a shuttle cockpit, mouths and hands working feverishly.

So he thinks it’s understandable that he doesn’t catch on until it’s too late.

Cassian tries not to focus on negatives before going on a mission, but he hates Pitann. The stifling heat, the heavy gravity—everything about its environment is perfectly calculated to make someone born on Fest uncomfortable. And the atmosphere is just this side of toxic to humans, so a breathing mask is necessary if you’re going to be exposed to it for more than a few hours. It’s also corrosive to droids, so Kaytoo won’t be with him.

In other words, Cassian admits to himself, the prospect of spending two standard weeks alone on Pitann has him on edge. He wants Jyn (needs her, the more truthful part of his brain whispers). If he could lose himself in her, tonight would be bearable. Even her sleeping beside him, breathing quietly, would be enough.

And she knows he’s leaving at 0600 hours; she was in the hangar this afternoon when he talked to flight control about requisitioning a shuttle. So after he’s packed his duffel and set it by the door, Cassian sits on his bunk, flicking through reports on his datapad, and waits. 

But Jyn doesn’t come. Not even in the early hours when she used to sneak in from the barracks, looking only for a warm bed. And when Cassian does the math in his head, he realizes she hasn’t come to him in more than a month.

He needs to get some sleep. He tosses the pad on his desk, lies down with his hands folded on his chest and stares up into the blank darkness. Did he do something, or not do something? 

Well. Does it matter? Since the moment it started, he knew that this… whatever it is between them had a time limit, probably a short one. Jyn isn’t the kind of person who has longterm lovers.

To be fair, neither is Cassian. But he wishes he could be. And he’d hoped for a little more time, a few more moments to add to his hoard of carefully polished memories. Her sly upward glance as she takes him in her mouth, or her hair falling out of its knot as he runs his fingers through it. The way her eyes lose focus as she comes. 

Both of them are paranoid by nature or nurture, rarely allowing anyone within their carefully guarded perimeters. It makes something in Cassian’s chest tighten knowing that she trusts him enough to let him touch her in that way. But even more than sex with Jyn, it’s the aftermath that Cassian craves: before she gathers her defenses and rebuilds her walls, when she lets herself cling to him. That brief period when he’s able to hold her in his arms without the sensation that she’s just waiting to make her escape… that’s the longing he finds hardest to ignore. 

Eventually, Cassian gives up on sleep. He pulls on his clothes and heads off to do his preflight checks. If he finds the right person, he can probably get clearance to launch early.

 

When Cassian returns from Pitann, the only one to greet him in the hangar is K-2. Cassian is exhausted from a long solo flight through every hyperlane shortcut he knows, shaving every possible parsec off the route in his rush to get away from that kriffing planet. His overtired brain is whirring, his eyes are still dry and gritty with blown dust and his mouth is stale from breathing canned air.

“You don’t happen to know where…” He stops himself from finishing the question. There’s no point.

“Jyn Erso and Bodhi Rook are currently in the PT facility. I believe Jyn is engaged in another casual sparring match.”

Cassian scrubs his hand over his face, rubbing at the lines that wearing a breathing mask for two weeks have engraved across his cheekbones. Of course she is. It amazes him that the two of them can still find suckers willing to take Jyn on in a “friendly” bout or place bets on Bodhi’s lopsided odds. But on a base the size of Echo, people are constantly shipping in and out, and there’s always a fresh crop of ignorant rebels.

“I thought you’d like to know.” Kay tilts his head in his strangely bird-like fashion. “Do you require anything else, Cassian?”

“I’m fine.” He waves the droid off. “Thanks, Kay.”

After Pitann, the frigid air of Hoth is even more biting as Cassian shuffles down the neverending icy corridors. His body's stiff with cold already, sinking into inertia except for an occasional racking shiver. 

He drops his duffel at the foot of his bunk with a thud and thinks longingly about standing under the fresher until he feels semi-human again. The smart thing to do would be to get clean, get something to eat, and get the rest he desperately needs.

Cassian shrugs a padded vest on over his jacket and goes to find Jyn.

 

He arrives in the cavernous PT space just after the fight’s ended. Cassian vaguely recognizes the loser as a SpecOps trooper he’s worked with on a few infiltration missions. Now he’s slumped on a stool with his friends consoling him. In a couple days, he’ll have a truly impressive black eye. Jyn’s unwrapping her hands, grinning through blood trickling from a split on her cheekbone, and Bodhi and Kes are smugly counting their take. Cassian shakes his head. At least Solo isn’t here too.

“Clear this room in thirty seconds,” he shouts in his best drill sergeant bellow, “and I won’t report each and every one of you to General Merrick for disorderly conduct.”

Yelling makes his head feel like it’s going to split open, but it has the desired effect. The crowd disperses quickly, sullen or cheerful depending on which way they bet. He glares at Bodhi and Kes as they pass him, shoving wads of credits into their pockets. “I’ll buy you a drink later, Andor,” Kes says with a wink. Cassian flips an obscene gesture at him.

When Jyn files by he puts an arm out to stop her. “Not you, Erso,” he says. “You can visit medbay and get a droid to fix that cheek, or you can let me do it. Your choice.” She loathes 2-1Bs, but he figures she’ll pick that option in order to avoid him. It’s the best way he can think of to ensure she gets the injury taken care of.

Jyn shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. “You’ll do it faster.” She crumples the wrappings from her fists and tosses them in the closest recycle unit. 

They walk side by side toward his quarters. Her body still draws him in; he’s incapable of leaving more than a few centimetres between them. He wants to reach out and cup her elbow, or rest his hand at the small of her back the way he used to. But he doesn’t know the rules now, so he doesn’t. He looks at her sideways and catches her glancing up at him, her eyes half-hidden under ragged bangs. Her cheek is already swelling.

“That’s going to scar without bacta.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, there goes my modelling career.”

While he grabs the medkit, she sits down on his bed. He pulls the desk chair over to sit in front of her and starts to work. 

She flinches away at the cold sting of the antiseptic wipe and he takes her chin in his hand to keep her head still. He focuses purposefully on the cut, still seeping a little blood. But in his peripheral vision he sees her watching him, her green eyes shaded dark with what might be sadness.

He wishes he could hate her, but he can’t, so he goes on methodically cleaning and treating the wound.

Once he’s managed to seal it with medical bond, he tapes a strip of gauze over it just to keep it secure and dry. He sits back, taking his hand away from her face, and starts to collect the discarded packaging. “We’re done.” His voice is curt.

She looks at him. “Are we?”

Cassian is bone-weary, too wrung-out to handle a conversation with double meanings. He sighs and drops his chin to his chest, looking down at her knees. He doesn’t think he can control his expression right now, and he doesn’t want Jyn to see what his face might tell her. “Just… for the record, I wish you’d told me that we were. You don’t have to tell me why,” he adds, in case she thinks he’s demanding an explanation. “But—a warning or something would have been good.”

“I thought it was better that way,” she murmurs in a voice so low it’s barely audible. “I didn’t want to make it weird.”

Cassian shrugs. Jyn might prefer that, but for his part, he’d rather see the blaster shot that’s going to get him coming. 

“I'm sorry.” She reaches out to rest her hand on his face, tracing her thumb along the mask groove on his cheek, up to the fine, papery skin under his eye. “You look tired.”

“I am.” Cassian holds very still to keep himself from pressing into her touch, turning his mouth into her palm. “Long flight.”

Jyn runs her thumb over his cheek once more and pulls her hand away from his face. She moves forward on the bed, her knees bumping against his, and he scrapes his chair back to give her room to get up and leave. But she doesn’t stand. Instead she leans forward, and before he can prepare for the impact her mouth is on his. 

Cassian falls into her and has a hand in her hair and the other on her hip before he can remember why this is a bad idea. His beard catches on the edge of her bandage and he mutters an apology, pulling away. 

“Shut up,” she tells him, and draws his head back down to hers. 

Jyn kisses him so rarely—until now he could have counted each time on his fingers—and when she does it’s usually as fierce and demanding as she is. She’s never kissed him like this, slow and careful. He wishes he could stay here and do this forever, but craning forward to reach her mouth is making his tired muscles ache. He sits back, looping his fingers into her belt, and tries to tug her into his lap. 

Somehow Jyn shakes her head without taking her mouth away from his. “Come here.” She pulls him forward instead, down onto the narrow bunk with her, and he goes willingly. 

Cassian doesn't understand why she’s changed her mind; he only half-believes this is really happening. It’s very possible this is all a dream he’s having in the chair of a shuttle on auto-pilot. But until he wakes up, or she does, he'll take whatever Jyn is willing to give. 

He slides his palm up her side, pushing her shirt up, seeking out the landmark scars he’s mapped and traced before. Jyn wrestles the shirt off over her head. “Stars, Cassian, I want—” And then he has his mouth on her breast, and she stops talking. He knows she likes the rough scrape of his stubble on the delicate curve underneath and he uses that until she whimpers. 

They’re both so tired and sore that the only way they can manage to do this is slowly. It feels strange but good. Fresh, ruddy bruises from the fight are blooming like roses on her skin and he kisses each one gently. 

She gets her hand inside his pants and he groans when she twists her hand around him. His brain empties of anything but the rough strokes of her palm.

“I want,” Jyn gasps again, but doesn’t seem to be able to finish her sentence. She fumbles with his pants and manages to get them far enough down his legs that he can kick them off ungracefully. Twisting around, she struggles with her own until he rises to his knees, hooks his fingers in the waistband and pulls them off.

Jyn lifts up to her knees, facing him, and tears off his shirt. They’re pressed together skin to skin now, thigh to hip to mouth. Her arms wind around his shoulders to hold him even closer as she kisses the place under his jaw that makes him shudder. “Inside. I want you inside me.” 

Cassian freezes. This—they haven’t—is she sure? He thought she didn’t want it for some reason, and that was fine—

Then she kisses him again and it doesn’t matter.

The knowledge he’s on borrowed time ought to keep Cassian from pushing Jyn down on the bed, from touching her soft slick heat and watching her mouth drop open. But it didn’t stop him before, and it certainly can’t now that she’s grabbing at him and drawing him into her. Later doesn’t matter as long as Jyn doesn’t stop kissing him, clutching at his hair, pulling his hips into hers. As long as his hands are on her skin, nothing is wrong. 

He watches, and tries to memorize every detail he can before this is over: the feel of her around him, the way her eyes widen and then squeeze shut, the small sounds she makes in the back of her throat. He watches her lips part, and then he’s kissing her again and again, breathing her name in short gasps into her mouth. 

When he reaches down to touch her, the small, firm circles she likes, she moans and he can feel her start to shake, clenching around him. Heat races up his neck and down to the root of his spine. Jyn wraps her legs around his and lifts her hips in a rolling wave that carries him along. He buries his face in the hair tangled over her shoulder and comes. 

They both lie still, unmoving for a few instants. Everything suddenly seems loud to Cassian: their ragged breathing, the bunk creaking underneath their combined weight, the faint roar of the ventilation ducts in the hall outside. He waits three breaths, four, and then he feels the familiar tension return to Jyn’s body as she gathers herself to leave.

For once, Cassian tightens his grasp instead of releasing her. “Stay for a while. Get some rest.” He wants this to last just a few more minutes.

Jyn hesitates. “Okay,” she mutters. She shifts and squirms in his arms, turning until her back is to him but his arm is still wrapped around her. He presses his lips to the top of her spine. 

This time, after Jyn leaves, he doubts she’ll come back. He thinks she probably intended this as a better ending, a final goodbye. And that should be enough for him, but like an idiot he’s already hoping for just once more. One more time, he thinks, and _then_ he could manage to let her go. 

But for now, if she’ll stay for a little while, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods of the [Rebel Captain Network](https://therebelcaptainnetwork.tumblr.com/) for organizing this; it was the first Tumblr fanwork exchange I've participated in, and I enjoyed it immensely! 
> 
> Also posted [here](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/160313214013/finally) on my Tumblr.
> 
> Title from [Blackbird on Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pPn7W4E5SI) by Amelia Curran, which is a very _Rogue One_ song.
> 
> While this story stands on its own (I hope), it can also be read as [part of a series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/734862).


End file.
